Perl running a batch file @echo command not found

Question

I am using mr on Windows and it allows running arbitrary commands before/after any repository action. As far as I can see this is done simply by invoking perl's system function. However something seems very wrong with my setup: when making mr run the following batch file, located in d:

@echo off
copy /Y foo.bat bar.bat

I get errors on the most basic windows commands:

d:/foo.bat: line 1: @echo: command not found
d:/foo.bat: line 2: copy: command not found

To make sure mr isn't the problem, I ran perl -e 'system( "d:/foo.bat" )' but the output is the same.

Using xcopy instead of copy, it seems the xcopy command is found since the output is now

d:/foo.bat: line 1: @echo: command not found
Invalid number of parameters

However I have no idea what could be wrong with the parameters. I figured maybe the problem is the batch file hasn't full access to the standard command environment so I tried running it explicitly via perl -e 'system( "cmd /c d:\foo.bat" )' but that just starts cmd and does not run the command (I have to exit the command line to get back to the one where I was).

What is wrong here? A detailed explanation would be great. Also, how do I solve this? I prefer a solution that leaves the batch file as is.

Anirudh Ramanathan · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-31 09:35:37Z

3

The echo directive is executed directly by the running command-prompt instance. But perl is launching a new process with your command. You need to run your script within a cmd instance, for those commands to work.

Your cmd /c must work. Check if you have spaces in the path you are supplying to it. You can use a parametrized way of passing arguments,

@array = qw("/c", "path/to/xyz.bat");
system("cmd.exe", @array);

The echo directive is not an executable and hence, it errors out. The same is true of the copy command also. It is not an executable, while xcopy.exe is.

edited Jan 31, 2013 at 9:35

answered Jan 31, 2013 at 9:24

Anirudh Ramanathan

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2 Comments

stijn Over a year ago

ok I see that cmd will be necessary to properly interpret the batch file. However I cannot use the parametrized way (the system call is in the mr script and I do not want to modify it), the command should be a one liner. I think the cmd call is not working due to quoting / escaping rules but I'm going to look into it.

stijn Over a year ago

got it, the clue was in your answer already: I was using cmd but that invokes cmd.bat which is not an executable so cause problems, using cmd.eze makes everything work. Thanks~

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